Fat days. We all have them. One day you look in the mirror and see an “average” sized human being and the next day you look at that same person who seems to have doubled in size. You tug at the soft rolls of your belly, shake your bingo wings from side to side, sigh with frustration at your touching thighs. Is it possible you’ve gained 3 stone in 24 hours?
I can safely say the answer is a resounding no. Even if you had a few too many bottles of wine followed by your favourite takeaway (12 inch cheesey garlic bread yes PLEASE) and a family sharing size bar of dairy milk, it’s still a no. In fact, it has been proven to be nothing but an illusion created in a part of our brain called the posterior parietal cortex. There aren’t specific receptors that send information to the brain about the size and shape of your body parts, so instead “the brain appears to create a map of the body by integrating signals from the relevant body parts such as the skin, joints and muscles, along with visual cues” one study concluded. So our perception of our body? It’s pretty much guesswork. In other words, in most cases, we won’t see ourselves the way other’s see us.
A 2015 survey found that half of women who have cancelled a social engagement cited their reason as having a “fat day”. We are literally missing out on our lives, on making connections, on having fun because of this warped relationship with our bodies and the fat we have on it. So why would almost 3/4 of us rather be mean or stupid than fat? Or even more shockingly, why on earth would over half of us rather be hit by a bus than be fat? What are we really saying when we say ‘I feel fat?’ It could mean hundreds of thousands of things depending on our social conditioning, but the most common are:
Illustration by Rachel Woodend ♥
For me, when I experience the feeling of “fat”, mine translates to being terrified I won’t be loved if I put on weight – much like the rest of us I’ve grown up with the messages from the media that to exist in the world and to be an attractive and accepted woman in society, I must conform to the idealistic body type – i.e. thin (but not too thin), athletic (but not too athletic), curvy (but not too curvy). I’ve grown up with people around me talking about how unappealing people in larger bodies are. How they are lazy, unmotivated, unhealthy and a burden to society. I’ve grown up with my peers constantly being on water diets, spinach diets, not eating lunch because they want to fit into a size 6 prom dress. How can I have possibly grown up to not fear fatness?
We cannot feel fat. Fat is nothing more than a bundle of cells. Fat is not an emotion. And, when it comes down to it, fat is not a negative word (despite all the bullshit we hear in the media). We all have fat on our bodies, just like we all have fingernails on our fingers. It only becomes a negative thing when we attach meaning to it, which is incredibly easy to do in our fat phobic society. But imagine you were on a dessert island with a group of other women and men who were all different shapes and sizes. You’d never seen photos of perfectly photoshopped women and men in magazines, you’d never read an article about the 5:2 diet, or Atkins, or even heard of a calorie, you’d never been socialised to believe you needed to be a certain size to be accepted, or how “dangerous” having even an inch of fat on the body is. Do you still think you’d still feel “fat”? Do you still think you’d be uncomfortable with your soft belly rolls or chunky thighs? Do you still think it would be your priority to lose weight?
So the next time you find yourself looking down at your body and complaining about the fat that resides there, ask yourself what it is you’re really feeling. Tell yourself this is society talking; not you. Remind yourself that you do not have to conform to its ideals: you can be 100% beautiful without changing a single thing about your body. Or you can choose not to prioritise beauty at all, because in the end, does the way we look really matter?
Love,
Kirsty
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The Kirsty Way 